Affinity Photo 2.2

[407370]

I had access to a free download of Affinity Photo for evaluation. I thought I would try and do a Sky replacement.

Started with this:

Beautiful old church in Edinburgh with typical Scottish grey sky. This is a good test for sky replacement because of the huge contrast between building and existing sky.


The mask creation is very easy with a dedicated tool and the possibility to Refine the Mask Selection to a very fine level.

As you can see above the mask was complete (the red bit).

If you zoom in 150% you can see the mask is nearly perfect but did generate a magenta colour cast on certain high contrast areas.

If you look at the pic with an actual background the mask stands up well. But still shows a bit of distortion:

The overall process turned out very well and was quick.

Luminar Neo is my normal editor and it does sky replacement much quicker but for more difficult masking exercises Affinity does a cleaner job.

Comments Welcome.

CHEERS
JBO

 

[JoeW]

Thanks for sharing. I'm a long-time Affinity user but haven't upgraded yet. This is useful to me.

 

[407370]

Hi There.

I have started photographing people now and had no clue how to edit portraits. Looked up a few tutorials and hey presto welcome to the world of Affinity Photo "Frequency Separation" editing.

Basically its a filter:

Which splits the image into separate High / Low frequency layers which can be edited individually:

I have duplicated the LOW Frequency layer to add more effects. The low frequency allows applying of colour without affecting the texture (and vice versa). This allows for some very interesting possibilities.

You know those photos with blown out areas that cant really be brought back or super shiny objects that are just way too difficult to photograph in the first place. Being a macro guy I have to deal a lot with blown out areas and its not Luminar Neos biggest strength.

Example photo of my niece (yes I am really that old):

BEFORE:

AFTER:

The best way to describe the effect is that it is like applying a Circular Polariser after the pic has been taken.

I am going to be using this a lot.

I dont know if Adobe products have a similar process as I have never used them.

CHEERS
JBO

 

[smoke665]

Frequency separation has been around for along time in PS. Since most editors emulate Adobe I'm assuming they were the first.

I use it frequently in portraits to smooth skin coloring and repair blemishes. There is no easy repair when fixing blown highlights and look natural. If you look closely you'll see what I mean. To fix it requires separate layers of color and textures to blend with the surrounding areas. In some cases its easier to replace the texture entirely, which is why I have a library of textures (most of which are custom made) to work with.

 

[Woolsocks]

The first image looks like it was taken with auto focus because the spire is out of focus. Replacing the sky which would likely be in focus would look odd no doubt. Unless you soft blurred the sky too.

I read everything you said. Interesting. But Photoshop camera raw and other programs all can edit highlights. That's basically what it looks like to me. And I don't think your niece looks better. In fact I think it looks worse. Lowering the highlights now has made her skin look silver. I've ran into this myself in retouching human faces.

 

[407370]

Frequency separation has been around for along time in PS. Since most editors emulate Adobe I'm assuming they were the first.

I use it frequently in portraits to smooth skin coloring and repair blemishes. There is no easy repair when fixing blown highlights and look natural. If you look closely you'll see what I mean. To fix it requires separate layers of color and textures to blend with the surrounding areas. In some cases its easier to replace the texture entirely, which is why I have a library of textures (most of which are custom made) to work with.

I guessed Adobe would have similar but as I am just starting to use Affinity I need a lot of practice.

 

[407370]

I am getting into doing Affinity tutorials and here is the latest result:

Loving this software so far.

CHEERS
JBO

 

[Woolsocks]

I am getting into doing Affinity tutorials and here is the latest result:

View attachment 279309

Loving this software so far.

CHEERS
JBO

Is it intentional? Transparency of beak over the white line which is your R.

 

[snowbear]

The first image looks like it was taken with auto focus because the spire is out of focus. Replacing the sky which would likely be in focus would look odd no doubt. Unless you soft blurred the sky too.

The first shot was 75mm at f/5 - my guess would be FOV.

Your last paragraph has nothing to do with the quality of the images and has been deleted.

 

[JoolsW]

Oooh and while we're at it, Affinity also opens edits and saves RAW, NEF files too. No need for another app to do it.

 

[SunriseAvenue]

Affinity is amazing, I used Photoworks for quite some tume but switched to Affinity when I felt enough confidence to use something more sophisticated. Never regretted getting it.

 

[407370]

I have spent a lot of time doing tutorials to get used to the interface. There is a lot of SUB / SUB / SUB menu navigating that can be quite daunting to begin with but I find it getting easier to navigate the interface every time I do a tutorial.

CHEERS
JBO